Vincent Hogan: Ferguson abusing his lofty status
You had to respect the humanitarian in Clive Tyldesley on Saturday evening that had him fret over the posh seating arrangements at Wembley. With Manchester United's treble dream beginning to curdle, the poor chap sitting directly in front of Alex Ferguson looked in dire need of ear-plugs and a back-guard.
The camera caught a glimpse of him with his face in his hands, prompting Tyldesley to sigh that such proximity to the United boss had surely made for "a difficult afternoon."
No doubt, he went straight home after, put on some Verdi and vowed to ring-fence all future Saturdays for lawn work and creosoting the garden furniture.
Ferguson can radiate bad energy like few others on this planet and, as United slipped to defeat against their noisy neighbours, he looked like he'd quite like to have had anyone within a one mile radius disemboweled, their entrails pickled in brine.
His glare can sand furniture and only a fool would have told him to "pipe down" as United came undone on Saturday.
He had, of course, been banished from the touchline for recent abuse of a referee. Yet, he was wired up to communicate with his bench and was even at liberty to visit the dressing-room. As punishments go, it amounted to a playful pat with a rolled-up newspaper.
No matter, Fergie bore the look of a man with a bulging Filofax of new enemies now.
Thunder
And, maybe, you have to be cut from the same hard, Scottish soil to know how to deal with that kind of thunder. This column bows to no one in our respect for the Scotland team of 1986 and a story from their training camp in Sante Fe prior to the Mexico World Cup.
Ferguson had taken charge in the wake of Jock Stein's tragic death and, in New Mexico, the management staff were billeted in log cabins, adjacent to the team hotel.
One night, some of the players -- presumably those inclined to keep angry tarantulas for pets -- found their way into Ferguson's cabin and loosened all the light bulbs. This ensured that, on his return from a night out, none of the lights worked.
An irate Ferguson went to Craig Brown's cabin to phone reception, then made his way back to his own to intercept the electrician. At some point, he went to the bathroom in darkness, not knowing that the players had put cling film over the toilet.
As Brown recalled: "When he let go with a much needed pee, it all splashed back on him."
Gordon Strachan, who was in the ITV studio last Saturday, would have been among the shorter-priced culprits as Ferguson called up laundry that night. And frankly, quarter of a century on, it's a small miracle that he's still living. For Strachan also played under Ferguson with Aberdeen and United and had an unfortunate personal habit of tugging the lion's tail.
He has, on his own admission, often been 'blanked' by the man since and, given what happened on one European Cup night with Aberdeen, it's not all that difficult to see why.
The story is recounted in Patrick Barclay's biography of Ferguson, 'Football -- Bloody Hell!' Liverpool thumped the Scottish champions 4-0 (5-0 on aggregate) in a game sponsored locally by the snack food company, KP, and the sponsors had put a plastic bag filled with samples of their product on every hook in the Anfield changing-rooms.
Afterwards, Ferguson having given the team both barrels, an uneasy quiet descended on his players. Strachan, almost inevitably, broke the silence. "I asked if anyone wanted to swap their chocolate dippers for salt and vinegar crisps," he recalled.
His wit drew the managerial promise of a fine for the entire squad if anyone had the temerity to laugh for the remainder of the night. Needless to say, no-one did.
"Anger is his petrol, his fuel," Strachan says of Ferguson now. Yet, he builds wonderful football teams too, teams defined by fluid passing, intelligent movement and, above all, high achievement. For all of the smoking gun caricature, Ferguson is still tantalisingly close to a 12th Premier League title and third Champions League crown.
Which makes him, quite possibly, the greatest manager football has known.
A pity then that his success continues to be referenced by casual rudeness and quickness of temper. His response last week to a Wolverhampton policeman's suggestion that Wayne Rooney's obnoxious outburst at West Ham would have merited arrest on a public street drew, maybe, Ferguson's most graceless eruption yet.
Rooney follows the path previously trod by Roy Keane and Eric Cantona of having an exemplar role in the United dressing-room. This means, effectively, that Ferguson indulges behaviour from him that he would not countenance from lesser employees.
It makes football sense to do so. Rooney is United's most important player and, for a man who sees aggression as just a natural tool of management, cut from the right cloth in Ferguson's eyes.
Yet for the United boss to ridicule Superintendent Mark Payne as he did, dismissing him as a "wee guy" with "a need to be noticed" who had "probably never been recognised in his life," broke new ground in arrogant disregard of public responsibility.
In effect, he was questioning the right of a humble policeman to criticise a wealthy, football celebrity.
This broke new and dangerous ground. It was the worst expression of professional self-interest, an eruption indifferent to any example set or social repercussion looming. It was Ferguson, a knight of the realm remember, legitimising loutish menace.
On Saturday, ITV broadcast constant images of suspended manager and player sitting helplessly in the stand as United's season hit its first significant pothole. Both looked uncomfortably aware of the camera.
Who can say if a penny dropped?
- Vincent Hogan
Irish Independent
